Loving the Lord is the “main feature in a life completely devoted to priestly service and theology, which You, not by chance, have defined as the ‘quest for the beloved’”. Pope Francis addressed these words to his predecessor in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace today, to mark the 65th anniversary of the priestly ordination of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. “Today – Pope Francis said – we celebrate the story of a call which began 65 years ago with your priestly ordination, which took place in the Freising Cathedral on 29 June 1951”. What Benedict XVI “has always borne witness to, and still bears witness to, today” is that “the crucial thing in our days – be they sunny or rainy –, that thing which is essential to all the rest, is that the Lord is truly present, that we desire Him, that we are interiorly close to Him, that we love Him, that we truly and wholeheartedly believe in Him, and that because of our faith in Him, we also deeply love Him. It is this love that truly fills our hearts – the Pontiff added -; it is this faith which makes us walk steadily and peacefully on the water, even in the midst of a storm, as Peter did. This love, this faith, is what enables us to look to the future, not with nostalgia or fear, but with joy, even at an old age in life”.